Military personnel in combat zones require protection from enemy weapons. Further, munitions and the like also require protection from weapon fire and the like. Conventionally, military personnel are wearing protective body armor to reduce risk of injuries. Body armor is generally protecting clothing, designed to absorb and/or deflect slashing, bludgeoning, and penetrating attacks. In addition to military personnel, body armor can be used to protect police forces, private citizens and private security guards or bodyguards. Body armor can include metal or ceramic plates in battledress, providing additional protection from rifle rounds. Metallic components or tightly-woven fiber layers can give soft armor resistance to stab and slash attacks from a knife. Mail armor continues to be used as protection against stab/slash attacks.
For personal body armor, Kevlar™ is well known as a component of some bullet resistant vests and bullet resistant face masks. Kevlar is a product name and trademark for a para-aramid synthetic fiber, related to other aramids such as Nomex and Technora and was developed at DuPont in 1965. Various helmets and vests used by United States military forces since the early 1980s both have Kevlar™ as a key component, as do their replacements. Other military uses include bullet resistant facemasks used by sentries. Kevlar™ in non-woven long strand form is used inside an outer protective cover to form chaps that loggers use while operating a chainsaw. If the moving chain contacts and tears through the outer cover, the long fibers of Kevlar™ tangle, clog, and stop the chain from moving as they get drawn into the workings of the drive mechanism of the saw. The latest Kevlar™ material that DuPont has developed is Kevlar XP. In comparison with ‘normal’ Kevlar™, Kevlar™ XP is more light-weight and more comfortable to wear, as it is quilt stitch is not required for the ballistic package. Another fiber used to manufacture a bullet resistant vest is Dyneema™ which is a lightweight high-strength oriented-strand gel spun through a spinneret. Dyneema™ has an extremely high strength-to-weight ratio (a 1-mm-diameter rope of Dyneema™ can bear up to a 240-kg load), is light enough that it can float on water, and has high energy absorption characteristics. Dyneema™ is a polyethylene fiber.
However, there can be situations where it is not feasible for personnel to wear protective body armor while still in harm's way in a combat area or the like. For example, while in a combat zone, personnel may need to perform maintenance in a small area which does not allow the personnel to wear protective body armor. One such example can include performing setup and maintenance on a Land-Based Phalanx Weapon System (LPWS). For example, the LPWS is a Counter Rocket, Artillery, and Mortar, abbreviated C-RAM or Counter-RAM, that is a system used to detect and/or destroy incoming artillery, rockets and mortar rounds in the air before they hit their ground targets, or simply provide early warning. AN LPWS can be mobile as well, mounted, for example, on a flatbed trailer or the like. Disadvantageously, maintenance and setup in an LPWS or other C-RAM is in a small, confined, and unprotected area. As such, it is not possible for field personnel to wear protective armor during these activities which could take several hours. Other equipment can also have these same limitations such as field-based radar systems and other weapons.
Furthermore, conventional body armor is not as effective with personnel performing maintenance and setup in dangerous areas. In particular, the design of conventional body armor is meant to protect a user's chest. While performing maintenance and setup in dangerous, personnel are in movement and exposed, i.e. not standing straight with the chest exposed, but exposing various body areas based on positioning.
Accordingly, there also is a need for portable protective armor that is not necessarily worn, but effective in protecting personnel as well as objects such as munitions in the field. Such portable protective armor would be easy to set up, be portable in nature, selectively configurable, and configured to provide protection over a specific area.